Healing through Remembering

Ahead of the 15 April 2026 screening in the Jethro Centre, Lurgan, of his award winning documentary, The Quiet Shuffling of Feet, Director Fergus Cooper reflects on some of the challenges of filmmaking post-conflict

The Quiet Shuffling of Feet

The film took 3 years to realise, researching, shooting, and editing.  It was filmed across the summer, autumn and winter of 2018-19, mainly on locations in Fermanagh, Tyrone, and Belfast. It explores conflict trauma and the recovery journey through the eyes of just one person, David Bolton, who led the post trauma recovery response to both the Enniskillen (1987) and Omagh bombings. (1998).

In the course of the film we learn that David himself experienced trauma early in childhood. His adult and professional life has been the search for answers to how one lives with, and recovers from, trauma.  In 2001 he established the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma & Transformation. His research along with the University of Ulster established that over 43,000 people in Northern Ireland are living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and up to 220,000 with conflict related mental health conditions (NICT&T UUJ).

My motivation in making the film was concern at the drift in our politics and peace process since 2010, continued violence, and the failure of governments across these islands to adequately address the needs of victims and survivors. I wanted to help ordinary people understand the impact of conflict trauma on individuals and across generations, and the cost of failing to deal with it.

As the former Head of Country of Save the Children in Northern Ireland I’m all too familiar with the impact of conflict trauma on young lives.  I was the media spokesperson for our international campaigns. I campaigned for Syrian refugees, and I supported the Dubs amendment that led the British Government to commit to resettle 3,500+ Syrian families, in the UK. Indeed, I had the humbling experience of a recent screening of TQSOF during Good Relations Week, to have 4 Syrian refugees view the film and engage in the Q&A afterwards.

What do we know about war?

At the beginning of the 20^th century, at the time of 1^st World War, the Great War, the War to end all Wars, 80% of the casualties were soldiers and 20% civilians. Now, in the 21st century, in the era of the “smart bomb”, the laser guided missile, and the remote-controlled drone, over 80% of causalities are civilians. Iraq, Syria, the Yemen, Palestine, Iran and Ukraine, just some of the countries in which such lethal weapons are regularly deployed against unarmed civilian populations.

We live in an era when combatants control much of our media, or access to the war zone, presenting challenges in reporting the true nature of conflict. Journalists themselves are frequently targeted by combatants. (By August 2025 the IFJ & CPJ reported that 274 journalists had been killed reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). We have invented a whole new lexicography to minimise emotional responses to the horrors of war. Civilian casualties are dehumanised and referred to as “collateral damage”. The old model of war had nation-states facing off with standing armies of uniformed soldiers. The wars we fight now are interventions, counterinsurgencies, wars on terrorism, pre-emptive strikes and proxy wars. We have defence forces and defence weapons that disguise and mitigate the lethal nature of their armoury.

From a humanitarian perspective, we know that the victims of war are not just those who are killed and injured, but the many civilians who flee war zones. When you put children and old people on the road they die in large numbers from exhaustion, dehydration and disease. Refugee camps are meant to be temporary, before people are either returned home when peace is restored or given humanitarian protection and residency in a third country.

Healing Through Remembering

The challenge for me as a filmmaker is how do I tell the victims’ story without exposing them to further harm and trauma? How do I humanise the plight of victims and survivors so that we can respond emotionally, one human being to another, rather than averting our eyes and absolving ourselves of all responsibility?

When we remember war, we need to remember the victims and survivors of war and not just those combatants who prosecuted the war. To ensure a peaceful future, we must first reconcile ourselves with our painful past. If we don’t, then we will live with a culture of conflict that all too quickly can erupt once more into cycles of violence. That has been our experience in Ireland.

Truth recovery is an important tool in peace building and reconciliation. As a documentary filmmaker, I seek truth recovery and healing through remembering.